Deipnosophistae

Now the verb ἀναπίπτω, meaning to fall back, has properly reference to the mind, meaning to despair, to be out of heart. Thucydides says in his first book,

When they are defeated they are least of all people inclined to ἀναπίπτειν.

And Cratinus uses the same expression of rowers—

1. Ply your oars and bend your backs.

And Xenophon in his Œconomics says,

Why is it that rowers are not troublesome to one another, except because they sit in regular order, and bend forward in r gular order, and (ἀναπίπτουσιν) lean back in regular order?

—The word ἀνακεῖσθαι is properly applied to a statue, on which account they used to laugh at those who used the word of the guests at a feast, for whom the proper expression was κατακεῖμαι. Accordingly Diphilus puts into the mouth of a man at a feast—

1. I for a while sat down (ἀνεκείμην):

and his friend, not approving of such an expression, says, ʼἀνάκεισο. And Philippides has—

1. I supped too ἀνακειμένος in his house.

And then the other speaker rejoins—

1. What, was he giving a dinner to a statue?

But the word κατακεῖσθαι is used, and also κατακεκλῖσθαι, of reclining at meals: as Xenophon and Plato prove in their essays called the Banquet. Alexis too says—

1. 'Tis hard before one's supper to lie down,
2. For if one does one cannot go to sleep;
3. Nor give much heed to aught that may be said;
4. One's thoughts being fix'd on what there 'll be to eat.

Not but what the word ἀνακεῖσθαι is used in this sense, though rarely. The satyr in Sophocles says—

1. If I catch fire I'll leap with a mighty
2. Spring upon Hercules, as ἀνακεῖται.

And Aristotle says, when speaking of the laws of the Tyrrhenians,

But the Tyrrhenians sup, ἀνακειμένοι with the women under the same covering.

Theopompus also says—

1. Then we the goblets fill'd with mighty wine,
2. On delicate couches κατακειμένος,
3. Singing in turn old songs of Telamon.

And Philonides says—

1. I have been here κατακειμένος a long time.

And Euripides says in the Cyclops—

1. ʼἀνέπεσε (which is the same as ἀνέκειτο
2. Breathing forth long and deep and heavy breath.

p And Alexis says—

1. After that I bade her ἀναπεσεῖν by my side.

The ancients, too, used the word πάσασθαι for to taste. And so Phœnix says to Achilles, "You would not πάσασθαι anything in any one else's house. And in another place we find—

1. When they ἐπάσαντο the entrails:

for they only taste the entrails, so that a great multitude might have a taste of what exists in but a small quantity. And Priam says to Achilles—-

1. Now I have tasted food, (πασάμην.)

For it was natural for a man suffering under such calamities as his, only just to taste food, for his grief would not permit him to go so far as to satisfy his hunger. And therefore, he who did not touch food at all is called

fasting,

ἄπαστος. But the poet never uses the word πάσασθαι of those who eat their fill; but in their case he uses words which express satiety:—

1. But when their minds were pleased (τάρφθεν) with wholesome food;

and,

1. When they had ceased to wish for meat and drink.

But more modern writers use the word πάσασθαι for being satisfied. Callimachus says—

1. I should like to satiate
2. (πάσασθαι) myself with thyme;

and Eratosthenes—

1. They roasted their game in the ashes and ate it,
2. (ἐπάσαντο) at least they all did who could get it.

We find in the Theban bard the expression,

glueing them together as one would glue one piece of wood to another.

Seleucus says that the expression so common in Homer, δαῖτα θάλειαν, is the same as δίαιτα by a slight alteration of the arrangement of the letters; for he thinks that is too violent a change to consider it as derived from δαίσασθαι.

Carystius of Pergamos relates that the Corcyrean women sing to this day when playing at ball. And in Homer, it is not only men who play, but women also. And they used to play at quoits also, and at throwing the javelin, with some grace:—

1. They threw the quoit, and hurl'd the playful spear.

For any amusement takes away the feeling of ennui. And young men prosecute hunting as a sort of practice against the dangers of war; and there is no sort of chase which they avoid; and the consequence is that they are more vigorous and healthy than they otherwise would be.

1. As when they stand firm as unshaken towers,
2. And face the foe, and pour forth darts in showers.

The men of those times were acquainted with baths also of all sorts. as a relief from fatigue. Refreshing themselves after toil by bathing in the sea; which of all baths is the best for the sinews; and having relaxed the excessive strains of their muscles in the bath, they then anointed themselves with ointment, in order to prevent their bodies from becoming too rigid as the water evaporated. And so the men who returned from a reconnoissance,

1. Wash'd off their heat in Neptune's briny tides,
2. And bathed their heads, and legs, and brawny sides.[*](Iliad, x. 572.)

And then—

1. They to the polish'd marble baths repair,
2. Anoint with fresh perfumes their flowing hair,
3. And seek the banquet hall.

There was another way, too, of refreshing themselves and getting rid of their fatigue, by pouring water over the head:—

1. Then o'er their heads and necks the cooling stream
2. The handmaids pour'd:[*](Odyss. x. 362.)

for baths, in which the whole body is immersed, as the water surrounds all the pores on every side, prevents the escape of the perspiration, just as if a sieve were thrown into the water. For then nothing goes through the sieve, unless you lift it up out of the water, and so allow its pores, if one may call them so, to open, and make a passage through; as Aristotle says in his problems of natural philosophy, when he asks,

Why do men in a perspiration, when they come into warm or cold water no longer perspire, until they leave the bath again?